It's no coincidence that when Lawrenceville (Ill.) High School won 68 straight games in the early 1980s, Simmons was the star of the team.

It was no coincidence that in the two seasons Simmons played at Indiana University the Hoosiers played in one NCAA Tournament and one NIT, or that in his two seasons at the University of Evansville the Aces won nearly two-thirds of their games.

Simmons was the player his coaches and teammates always looked to in the clutch, when they needed a basket or a momentum changer.

Lawrenceville fans still talk about Simmons' state tournament performance in 1983, the year he was Illinois' Mr. Basketball. He scored all 23 of his team's second-half points as the Indians squeezed past Chicago's Providence-St. Mel in the quarterfinals on the way to winning their second consecutive state title.

Fans of IU and especially UE have similar memories of Simmons with their teams.

As a freshman, he was a key player for Bob Knight's Hoosiers when they reached the final eight of the 1984 NCAA Tournament. The next year, he helped them finish second in the National Invitation Tourney.

Then, after transferring to UE, Simmons averaged 24 points a game while leading the Aces to a record of 37-20, a share of a conference championship and a trip to the NIT.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and Simmons no longer is a player - he's a coach. But, 20 years later, the Aces are asking Simmons to do the same thing he often did then: Change the momentum, be their go-to guy.

When athletics director Bill McGillis introduced Simmons as the Aces' new head coach on Thursday, the announcement was met with a loud ovation. The school's Union Building was filled with current players, former players, big-money boosters and dozens of purple-clad fans. When Simmons walked into the room, trailing this year's team, he couldn't get to the

front until he'd hugged or shaken hands with at least half the people there. It looked and felt like one big Purple Love Fest.

Arguably, no hire in school history immediately more popular than that of Simmons, who McGillis called "a true legend of Aces basketball."

And now that McGillis has given Aces supporters what they want, it's up to Simmons to repay their faith in him. All he has to do is restore tradition, mend fences and re-vitalize the fans base. That is, be just as good as advertised.

It's a tall order; the pressure is on. But Simmons seems up to it. Indeed, he welcomes it.

"Any time you care for something, I think you feel pressure," Simmons said. "Hey, I want to do a really good job. And nobody's gonna put more pressure on me than me."

It's that pressure - that "fear of failure," in Simmons' words - that's always been "the great motivator. "It's always made me prepare for things even harder."

As a former Aces player, a former Aces assistant coach and a former Division II head coach, one who rebuilt the program at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Simmons surely seems prepared.

He knows what's expected and he's confident he can turn things around at a once-proud program that has suffered seven straight losing seasons.

"I pledge to work tirelessly to bring back the tradition that we all want to have," Simmons said. Then, gesturing toward a group of former UE players in the audidnce, he added: "The neat thing is we already have that tradition, and it's right here in front of you, with guys like Wayne Boultinghouse, Mike Volkman and Curt Begle."

Evansville was a member of the Midwsetern Collegiate Conference when Simmons played here and when he served as Jim Crews' recruiting coordinator. Since then, the Aces have moved to the Missouri Valley and have fallen on hard times. They haven't had a winning record in the Valley since 1999, and their detractors say they're in over their heads.

"I don't believe that," said Simmons, who, during his six years on Crews' staff, brought in eight players who went on to play pro basketball. "The key is to find players who are the right fit and then, as coaches, develop them into better players when they leave here than they were when they arrived - one through 15.

"If you want to bring back the tradition and bring back the enthusiasm, you have to get out and work extremely hard," Simmons said. "That starts with the head coach, and that's me."